Stories (28 page)

Rose was washing clothes in the sink. Her face was swollen and damp with crying, but she had combed her hair. When she saw him, she went red, trying to meet his eyes, but could not. He went straight over to her and put his arms around her. “Here, Rosie, don’t get all worked up now.” “Fm sorry,” she said, with prim nervousness, trying to smile. Her eyes appealed to him. “I don’t know what came over me, I don’t really.”

“It’s all right, I’m telling you.”

But now she was crying from shame. “I never use them words. Never. I didn’t know I knew them. I’m not like that. And now you’ll think …” He gathered her to him and felt her shoulders shaking. “Now, don’t you waste any more time thinking about it. You were upset—well, I wanted you to be upset. I did it on purpose, don’t you see, Rosie? You couldn’t go on like that, pretending to yourself.” He kissed the part of her cheek that was not hidden in his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I’m ever so sorry,” she wept, but she sounded much better.

He held her tight and made soothing noises. At the same time he had the feeling of a man sliding over the edge of a dangerous mountain. But he could not stop himself now. It was much too late. She said, in a small voice: “You were quite right, I know you were. But it was just that I couldn’t bear to think. I didn’t have anybody but Dad. It’s been him and me together for ever so long. I haven’t got anybody at all….” The thought came into her mind and vanished: Only George’s little girl. She belongs to me by rights.

Jimmie said indignantly: “Your dad—I’m not saying anything against him, but it wasn’t right to keep you here looking after him. You should have got out and found yourself a nice husband and had kids.” He did not understand why, though only for a moment, her body hardened and rejected him. Then she relaxed and said submissively: “You mustn’t say anything against my dad.”

“No,” he agreed, mildly, “I won’t.” She seemed to be waiting. “I haven’t got anything now,” she said, and lifted her face to him. “You’ve got me,” he said at last, and he was grinning a little from sheer nervousness. Her face softened, her eyes searched his, and she still waited. There was a silence, while he struggled with commonsense. It was far too long a silence, and she was already reproachful when he said: “You come with me, Rosie, I’ll look after you.”

And now she collapsed against him again and wept: “You do love me, don’t you, you do love me?” He held her and said: “Yes, of course I love you.” Well, that was true enough. He did. He didn’t know why, there wasn’t any sense in it, she wasn’t even pretty, but he loved her. Later she said: “I’ll get my things together and come to where you live.”

He temporised, with an anxious glance at the ominous ceiling: “You stay here for a bit. I’ll get things fixed first.”

“Why can’t I come now?” She looked on in a horrified, caged way around the basement as if she couldn’t wait to get out of it—she, who had clung so obstinately to its shelter.

“You just trust me now, Rosie. You pack your things, like a good girl. Ill come back and fetch you later.” She clutched his shoulders and looked into his face and pleaded: “Don’t leave me here long—that ceiling—it might fall.” It was as if she had only just noticed it. He comforted her, put her persuasively away from him, and repeated he would be back in half an hour. He left her sorting out her belongings in worried haste, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.

And now what was he going to do? He had no idea. Flats—they weren’t so hard to find, with so many people evacuated; yes, but here it was after eleven at night, and he couldn’t even lay hands on the first week’s rent. Besides, he had to give his wife some money tomorrow. He walked slowly through the damaged streets, in the thick dark, his hands in his pockets, thinking: Now you’re in a fix. Jimmie boy, you’re properly in a fix.

About an hour later his feet took him back. Rose was seated at the table, and on it were two cardboard boxes and a small suitcase—her clothes. Her hands were folded together in front of her.

“It’s all right?” she enquired, already on her feet.

“Well, Rosie, it’s like this—” He sat down and tried for the
right words. “I should’ve told you. I haven’t got a place really.”

“You’ve got no place to sleep?” she enquired incredulously. He avoided her eyes and muttered: “Well, there’s complications.” He caught a glimpse of her face and saw there—pity! It made him want to swear. Hell, this was a mess, and what was he to do? But the sorrowful warmth of her face touched him and, hardly knowing what he was doing, he let her put her arms around him, while he said: “I was bombed out last week.”

“And you were looking after me, and you had no place yourself?” she accused him tenderly.

“We’ll be all right. We’ll find a place in the morning,” he said.

“That’s right, we’ll have our own place and—can we get married soon?” she enquired shyly, going pink.

At this, he laid his face against hers, so that she could not look at him, and said: “Let’s get a place first, and we can fix everything afterwards.”

She was thinking. “Haven’t you got no money?” she enquired diffidently, at last. “Yes, but not the cash. I’ll have it later.” He was telling himself again: You’re properly in the soup, Jimmie, in—the—soup!

“I’ve got two hundred pounds in the post office,” she offered, smiling with shy pride, as she fondled his hair. “And there’s the furniture from here—it’s not hurt by the bomb a bit. We can furnish nicely.”

“I’ll give it back to you later,” he said desperately.

“When you’ve got it. Besides, my money is yours now,” she said, smiling tenderly at him. “Ours.” She tasted the word delicately, inviting him to share her pleasure in it.

Jimmie was essentially a man who knew people, got around, had irons in the fire and strings to pull; and by next afternoon he had found a flat. Two rooms and a kitchen, a cupboard for the coal, hot and cold water, and a share of the bathroom downstairs. Cheap, too. It was the top of an old house, and he was pleased that one could see trees from Battersea Park over the tops of the buildings opposite. Rose’ll like it, he thought. He was happy now. All last night he had lain on the floor beside her in the ruinous basement, under the bulging ceiling, consumed by dubious thoughts; now these had vanished, and he was optimistic. But when Rose came up the stairs with her packages she went straight to the window and seemed to shrink back. “Don’t
you like it, Rosie?” “Yes, I like it, but …” Soon she laughed and said, apologetically: “I’ve always lived underneath—I mean, I’m not used to being so high up.” He kissed her and teased her and she laughed too. But several times he noticed that she looked unhappily down from the window and quickly came away, with a swift, uncertain glance around at the empty rooms. All her life she had lived underground, with busses and cars rumbling past above eye-level, the weight of the big old house heavy over her, like the promise of protection. Now she was high above streets and houses, and she felt unsafe. Don’t be silly, she told herself. You’ll get used to it. And she gave herself to the pleasure of arranging furniture, putting things away. She took a hundred pounds of her money out of the post office and bought—but what she bought was chiefly for him. A chest for his clothes: she teased him because he had so many; a small wireless set; and finally a desk for him to work on, for he had said he was studying for an engineering degree of some kind. He asked her why she bought nothing for herself, and she said, defensively, that she had plenty. She had arranged the new flat to look like her old home. The table stood the same way, the calendar with yellowing roses hung on the wall, and she worked happily beside her stove, making the same movements she had used for years; for the cupboard, the drying-line and the draining-board had been fixed exactly as they had been “at home.” Unconsciously, she still used the phrase. “Here,” he protested, “isn’t this home now?” She said seriously: “Yes, but I can’t get used to it.” “Then you’d better get used to it,” he complained, and then kissed her to make amends for his resentment. When this had happened several times, he let out: “Anyway, the basement’s fallen in. I passed today, and it’s filled with bricks and stuff.” He had intended not to tell her. She shrank away from him and went quite white. “Well, you knew it wasn’t going to stay for long,” he said. She was badly shaken. She could not bear to think of her old home gone; she could imagine it, the great beams slanting into it, filled with dirty water—she imagined it and shut out the vision forever. She was quiet and listless all that day, until he grew angry with her. He was quite often angry. He would protest when she bought things for him. “Don’t you like it?” she would enquire, looking puzzled. “Yes, I like it fine, but …” And later she was hurt because he seemed reluctant to use the chest, or the desk.

There were other points where they did not understand each other. About four weeks after they moved in she said: “You aren’t much of a one for home, are you?” He said, in genuine astonishment: “What do you mean? I’m stuck here like …” He stopped, and put a cigarette in his mouth to take the place of speech. From his point of view he had turned over a new leaf; he was a man who hated to be bound, to spend every evening the same way; and now he came to Rose most evenings straight from work, ate supper with her, paid her sincere compliments on her cooking, and then—well, there was every reason why he should come, he would be a fool not to! He was consumed by secret pride in her. Fancy Rose, a girl like her, living with her old man all these years, like a girl shut into a convent, or not much better—you’d think there was something wrong with a girl who got to be thirty before having a man in her bed! But there was nothing wrong with Rose. And at work he’d think of their nights and laugh with deep satisfaction. She was all right, Rose was. And then slowly, a doubt began to eat into the pride. It wasn’t natural that she’d been alone all those years. Besides, she was a good-looker. He laughed when he remembered that he thought her quite ugly at first. Now that she was happy, and in a place of her own and warmed through with love, she was really pretty. Her face had softened, she had a delicate colour in her thin cheeks, and her eyes were deep and welcoming. It was like coming home to a little cat, all purring and pliable. And when he took her to the pictures he walked proudly by her, conscious of the other men’s glances at her. And yet he was the first man who had the sense to see what she could be? Hmm, not likely, it didn’t make sense.

He talked to Rose, and suddenly the little cat showed its sharp and unpleasant claws. “What is it you want to know?” she demanded coldly, after several clumsy remarks from him. “Well, Rosie—it’s that bloke George, you said you were going to marry him when you were a kid still?”

“What of it?” she said, giving him a cool glance.

“You were together a long time?”

“Three years,” she said flatly.

“Three years!” he exclaimed. He had not thought of anything so serious. “Three years is a long time.”

She looked at him with a pleading reproach that he entirely failed to understand. As far as she was concerned the delight
Jimmie had given her completely cancelled out anything she had known before. George was less than a memory. When she told herself that Jimmie was the first man she had loved, it was true, because that was how she felt. The fact that he could now question it, doubting himself, weakened the delight, made her unsure not only of him but of herself. How could he destroy their happiness like this! And into the reproach came contempt. She looked at him with heavy critical eyes; and Jimmie felt quite wild with bewilderment and dismay—she could look at him like that!—then that proved she had been lying when she said he was the first—if she had said so…. “But Rosie,” he blustered, “it stands to reason. Engaged three years, and you tell me …”

“I’ve never told you anything,” she pointed out, and got up from the table and began stacking the dishes ready for washing.

“Well, I’ve a right to know, haven’t I?” he cried out, unhappily.

But this was very much a mistake. “Right?” she enquired in a prim, disdainful voice. She was no longer Rose, she was something much older. She seemed to be hearing her mother speaking. “Who’s talking about rights?” She dropped the dishes neatly into the hot, soapy water and said: “Men! I’ve never asked you what you did before me. And I’m not interested either, if you want to know. And what I did if I did anything doesn’t interest you neither.” Here she turned on the tap so that the splashing sound made another barrier. Her ears filled with the sound of water, she thought: Men, they always spoil everything. She had forgotten George, he didn’t exist. And now Jimmie brought him to life and made her think of him. Now she was forced to wonder: Did I love him as much then? Was it the same as this? And if her happiness with George had been as great as now it was with Jimmie, then that very fact seemed to diminish love itself and make it pathetic and uncertain. It was as if Jimmie were doing it on purpose to upset her. That, at any rate, was how she felt.

But across the din of the running water Jimmie shouted: “So I’m not interested, is that it?”

“No, you’d better not be interested,” she announced, and looked stonily before her, while her hands worked among the hot slippery plates. “So that’s how it is?” he shouted, again furiously.

To which she did not reply. He remained leaning at the table, calling Rose names under his breath, but at the same time conscious of bewilderment. He felt that all his possessive masculinity was being outraged and flouted; there was, however, no doubt that she felt as badly treated as he did. As she did not relent he went to her and put his arms around her. It was necessary for him to destroy this aloof and wounded-looking female and restore the loving, cosy woman. He began to tease: “Spitfire, little cat, that’s what you are.” He pulled her hair and held her arms to her sides so that she could not dry the plates. She remained unresponsive. Then he saw that the tears were running down her immobile and stubborn cheeks, and in a flush of triumph picked her up and carried her over to the bed. It was all quite easy, after all.

But maybe not so easy, because late that night, in a studiously indifferent voice, Rose enquired from the darkness at his side: “When are we going to get married?” He stiffened. He had forgotten—or almost—about this. Hell, wasn’t she satisfied? Didn’t he spend all his evenings here? He might just as well be married, seeing what she expected of him. “Don’t you trust me, Rosie?” he enquired at last. “Yes, I trust you,” she said, rather doubtfully, and waited. “There’s reasons why I can’t marry you just now.” She remained silent, but her silence was like a question hanging in the dark between them. He did not reply, but turned and kissed her. “I love you, Rosie, you know that, don’t you?” Yes, she knew that; but about a week later he left her one morning saying: “I can’t come tonight, Rosie. I’ve got to put in some work on this exam.” He saw her glance at the desk she had bought him and which he had never used. “I’ll be along tomorrow as usual,” he said quickly, wanting to escape from the troubled, searching eyes.